I had previously used wordpress to drive my blog in M1. I immediately figured I would use it on M2 as well. It was easy enough to do and it was one of the first things I installed/configured as it was important for me to get that information over to M2 as well. Upon my performance optimization, I realize that it may not be what I want. I got to thinking and realized that I really don’t need a powerhouse of a blog. I touched on this thought initially, but realized that it would be easy to get data out of wordpress into another blog option as they all support importing data from the WP database. I do realize that once I move to one of the below options that it will be harder to get back to wordpress if I ever decided to go that way and it will likely be more difficult to move to any other blog platform as well.
I’m just curious if there is an obvious standout in the crowd in the below options which seem to be the most obvious when searching around.
MageFan
Mirisvat
MagePlaza
Amasty
I am currently watching/reading your review on Mageplaza right now. It may make sense for me to go with them as I do already have MagePlaza baked in to Porto and I’m sure it would utilize some of the base/core modules instead of introducing a completely new vendor.
I think the most important aspects would be that it isn’t a “heavy” extension and good SEO. I’ve been reading and going over all of them for the last day or so. If I make a choice, I’ll post up and say why. Of course, each one has features a little different. It would seem if a feature was a deal breaker then the choice would be obvious. I don’t require a lot of features.
Right now, after looking into things more. I’m leaning more towards either mageplaza or magefan. The reason being is they have more activity on github and the last thing I would like would be to left with a project that isn’t supported often when I’m trying to keep M2 up to date. There are also very few issues on magefan as compared to mirisvat or mageplaza. I may install magefan and then install mageplaza and see which I like and how they integrate. Magefan has some great features on the premium version that I think would be worth it. I don’t see all the same features on even Amasty’s and they seem to charge a fair bit more as well.
This is the correct answer, pretty much everything I wanted to say. Magefan is decent enough and most third party themes use it, so less styling issues. However I think if the blog is going to be active and you are going to post a lot then it’s better to just host Wordpress (or anything else) on a different server and integrate that as the blogging platform.
Thank you for the input. I tried mageplaza and it wouldn’t show up properly. I cleared all caches etc… imported my WP info and it showed in the backend, however I could only see one post. That went out the window real quick.
I did install Magefan as well and it installed and went great, just as one would hope.
Currently, I have restored the server back to the setup with wordpress integration until I can figure out what I would like to do. Of course, I would like to be much more active with the blog, however I doubt that will happen.
My only input on this, is subjective. So, Magento makes a great eCommerce Platform. Wordpress makes a great Blogging Platform. In the same way that a Hammer is good for things that a screwdriver isn’t. You can tape a screwdriver to a hammer, but it doesn’t make the hammer a good screwdriver. Weird analogy I know.
I’m glad to see that you took the change-logs into consideration. That’s my top tip when choosing modules. Also, trying to stick with one vendor as it usually results in compatibility with their other modules.
Personally, I’d just run Wordpress separately under a sub-domain or sub-directory.
Thank you very much. I don’t even look at software anymore if they don’t provide a proper changelog, let alone one that is updated somewhat frequently. I never had any issues with the with fishpig’s wordpress integration. It basically just uses wordpress for backend creation and then just slaps the blogs up on a magento CMS page. I know it’s more complicated than that, but it sure isn’t fancy. I ran M1 like that for 8 yrs without an issue. It is nice having the lifting power of wordpress on the backend for content creation.
I’ll probably end up sticking with this solution after my journey is coming to a close. I think the only way I will end up switching blogs if I implement pwa and the rest api or graph QL is functional with a particular blog set, which it seems like most reference magefan if anything at all.